Improve the quality of "dead band" audio-frequency magnetotelluric impedance data using electric field remote reference

Abstract

Magnetic remote-reference is the most practical noise suppression method in magnetotelluric data processing.In actual audio-frequency magnetotelluric (AMT) sounding observation, usually the "one with three" or "one with four" acquisition method is used, i.e., acquiring magnetic field of only one site and simultaneously acquiring electric field of multiple sites, without magnetic field data for remote-reference processing.The natural electro-magnetic field in the 5~1 kHz "dead band" range of signal strength is weak, resulting in the impedance in this band to have "outlies".In this paper, we found that the impedance estimated by using the local magnetic field and the local electric field as the reference in the "dead band" will be "upward" and "downward" biased respectively, while the electric field as the remote-reference channel can significantly improve the impedance quality in the "dead band".After processing the measured data of different reference distances, it is found that the effect of the electric field remote-reference processing is better than that of the local magnetic field and the local electric field.And the effect is comparable to that of magnetic field remote-reference.This has practical implications for AMT data processing.

Keywords

• audio-frequency magnetotelluric sounding
• impedance estimation
• dead band
• remote reference